This Crazy Street Race Includes A Cloverleaf And Cars Pitting At A Literal Gas Station

Lithuania’s premier endurance race is a spectacle quite unlike any other. This is no simple downtown street circuit—it’s hosted on a chunk of well-used highway. It throws together a weird layout with a weirder mix of cars, and competitors need to pull into a gas station to refuel. No kidding.

Meet the Aurum 1006 KM. That’s not a typo—this race really does take place over a 1006-kilometer—or 625-mile—distance. Oh, and it all goes down on the intersection of two regional highways, cloverleaf junction included.

The race profile continues to build as knowledge of this oddball race spreads beyond its native country via social media each year. It’s a highly unique battleground for touring cars, GT cars, and homebuilt specials, and there’s nothing quite else like it in the world.

Down Lithuania Way

The formal name for the track is Palanga Circuit. It’s built on the intersection of Lithuania’s A11 and A13 highways for the race each year, with a total length of 1.666 miles. There’s the main straight on the A13, with drivers racing down towards a tire chicane, before doing a U-turn to head back in the other direction. They then approach a right turn which takes them on to the A11, upon which they immediately jink left back towards the cloverleaf. They then spiral down back onto the A13 to complete the lap.

Racers do 373 laps in order to reach the total race distance of 1006 kilometers. But why 1006? The race began in 2000 as a 1000 km race. In 2005, local TV station TV3 and Horn Beer became a major headline sponsor of the event. In their honor, the event ran a distance of 1003 km.

The race would eventually revert to a 1000 km distance when the sponsors were replaced. However, when TV6 picked up the rights in 2017, the distance was changed to 1006 km. The current naming sponsor is ice cream manufacturer Aurum, so it’s called the Aurum 1006 km.

The field is made up of a variety of race cars, with GT3 machinery at the top of the tree. FIA-approved touring cars are also allowed to compete, including those built to TCR regulations. Finally, race cars that don’t fit into these categories can still compete, under the “SP” or “Special Cars” class. Perhaps the most eye-catching of these is a Lada 2104 which has been fully race-prepared with a Mustang V8 under the hood.

Perhaps the coolest feature of the circuit is the refueling setup. The pits are a temporary building on the start-finish straight, but that’s not where the cars refuel. Instead, there’s a gas station on the back straight which makes the perfect spot for competitors to top up on gas. The gas station belongs to the Orlen brand. Crews literally use the standard gas pumps to refuel the cars.

The race is livestreamed online these days. You can watch the stream of the 2024 event on YouTube if you so desire. The only thing that might give you pause is that the commentary is in Lithuanian. It can be difficult to follow the race if you’re not fluent, but it’s a fine language that’s well worth learning. In fact, it’s the most archaic Indo-European language still in common use!

This year’s race saw over 8 hours of action, including a good measure of spills, too. Cars getting tangled up and pushing each other into walls, a Porsche losing a wheel, and competitors getting jammed up as the whole pack tried to U-turn at once.

Still, it pales in comparison to last year’s event. The 2023 running saw a competitor’s car leave the track, destroying a manned camera tower in the process.  Miraculously, nobody was hurt.

Ultimately, this is the cool race to get into as a motorsporting hipster. F1? Mainstream. NASCAR? Parochial. But the Aurum 1006km? That’s the cool ticket. Go with the gas pumps.

Image credits: AURUM 1006 km Race Via YouTube Screenshot